YeKengalé

Every Black History Month for the last 20 years I have deliberately sought to circulate articles from my blog “The Half Not Told” in an attempt at kindling a conversation, hopefully a balanced conversation, an honest conversation, a hard-to-have conversation about race … and race like family, like nationality, like social group and faith community is an arena, a very valid arena for humans to work out issues of truth and justice, (and by the way, all the preceding are ‘social constructs’. Anytime one hears that phrase these days you can be sure somebody is trying to deconstruct something they usually have no idea of its social function nor a clue about a suitably functional alternative.)

Truth and justice are the conditions for that most sacred human aspiration of peace/unity, invoked by Pan-Africanists under the Swahili term UMOJA, the self-same conception in the Judeo-Christian tradition called SHALOM.

And every Black History Month for the last 20 years, I have had to recognise over and over again, that the problem with telling these stories is not one-sided: It is not just about telling certain stories, but also having those stories heard. The wilful and often habituated suppression of certain stories and the wilful and often habituated perpetuation of others are often beyond issues of mere bias, but strategies of conquest and/or survival. Who controls the narrative agenda in politics and religion controls the mentalities and orientation of the group.

Take, for example, a recent event I attended, celebrating the opening of the Amy Jaques Garvey Community Center on Jaques Road in Kingston Jamaica, an event celebrating the life of the woman almost entirely responsible for ensuring the survival of Marcus Garvey’s legacy of thought through the compilation and publishing of The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, a work that thankfully serves as ample refutation of those historical revisionists who would attempt to reinvent Mr. Garvey from the Race-First, Pan-African he was, and misrepresent him in a politically toothless form fitting the self- serving agendas of those who would rather see him as the Norman Vincent Peale of his generation, with a message of positive self image or some such relatively non-threatening thing.

But Garvey was and is a RACE-man. Up you mighty RACE you can accomplish what you will. Yes, you can distort his message to defend anything, including German Nazism, but his audience was just one RACE, the BLACK race – The International AFRIKAN community (yes, necessarily Black) which he beheld downtrodden in every nation of earth during his time (with the possible exception of Ethiopia) and whom his entire life effort was poured out as a sacrifice for the upliftment (in his own words) of this mighty people (as he saw us through the vision of his eye of faith).

While the attempts of those who would distort one’s identity in order to co-opt one’s spirit for their cause are quite transparent to those steeped in the doctrine and life of the masters of movements, this is not quite so apparent to those merely acquainted with the names of leaders. Whether Marcus or Jesus, Bedward or Bush, if you can not only tell their stories but also create the conditions for the perpetuation of the stories you tell, you really put a bit in the mouth (and ears) of the packs being led. One need only consider *Mobuto Sese Seko’s glorification of Patrice Lumumba to understand how nefarious (and effective) such a strategy can be.

Sese Seko followed Roman precedent in first killing ‘Christ’ (Lumumba was indeed the Congolese messiah of independence) out of political expediency, then establishing a national cult in his honor, also out of political expediency. – Rome, very much like Israel, were masters of the art of ‘spin’.

The fact that many, if not most of my readers will be unable to relate to that example is perfect commentary both on the overall failure of the Annual Black History Month exercise and the overall success of the cooption strategy in the current Jamaican social-scape (largely preferring to celebrate our own beat that imposters profit from rather than our own prophets that beat imposters.)

As perverse an example presented itself at the event. Thought was given to include modest Catholic ritual, citing Garvey’s Catholicism as a matter of historical fact, although I am unaware of any public statement ever made by him on this purported aspect of his identity, so marginal (if not altogether unfounded) the issue was for him – a thing my friend, genealogist Peter Espeut unwittingly confirmed by admitting that no baptismal records have ever been found confirming the assertion.

Thankfully, Mark Golding, the present leader of the PNP who was also in attendance, made no such mistake in his short address, although he had much firmer historical grounds to co-opt Mrs Garvey for Fabian Socialism (perhaps because her outspoken son was present who might not have allowed such a political faux pas to go unanswered).

But religious impunity, as anyone familiar with the unedited historical records of the Catholic church might readily agree, knows no bounds. Roman Catholicism stands as the most popular version of modern day global Christianity, (as with Sese Seko’s Zaire now Congo Free State), not by truth, justice, grace, faith or any such virtue but by absolute cunning, and the sheeplike stupor of a mesmerized flock.

This fact is not presented, nor should it be received grudgefully. It is after all, mere fact to be assimilated and learned from. The fact is that the very purpose of story-telling is mostly mesmery – not memory. Stories are all about orientation and facts belong more to science than history. Not that history eschews fact, rather it is incapable of transcending subjectivity. That’s a bitter red pill to swallow, but swallow it one must to wake up to reality.

Let’s continue with that terribly unsettling example from the event. In keeping with the purportedly appropriate acknowledgment of the Garveys’ Catholicism, prayers were said and scriptures were read. The scripture chosen was taken from Psalm 136 with hearty congregational response being “His love endures forever” (with the exception of the notable non-participation of a handful of persons including Dr. Julius Garvey and myself).

The absolute perversity, impunity and lurid incredulity of such a selection, tantamount to choosing 1st Timothy 2:12-15 as the select text for popular lady preacher Juanita Bynum’s ordination,

“ I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;^[a] she must be quiet. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, then Eve. ¹⁴ And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. ¹⁵ But women^[b] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

(exactly – only tactless dogmatists would find it appropriate), would not even be a thing of remote awareness to persons who have made pact not only to almost exclusively celebrate Hebrew ancestral stories but to deny if not denigrate those of their own.

Psalm 136

¹⁰ To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
¹¹ and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
¹² with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.

¹³ to him who divided the Red Sea asunder
His love endures forever.
¹⁴ and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
¹⁵ but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.

¹⁶ to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.

¹⁷ to him who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
¹⁸ and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
¹⁹ Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
²⁰ and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
²¹ and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
²² an inheritance to his servant Israel.
His love endures forever.

What could possibly be wrong with that??? ….The average Jamaican has never even heard of the Hekau Khasut (Hyksos) (see article on Jerusalem) nor knows slightly anything of Kemetic (Ancient Egyptian) history and literature, (see Who were the ancient Egyptians ) although the entire edifice of the Hebrew literary tradition can be credibly demonstrated to be heavily influenced by it … and with considerable ‘Sese Seko-like’ spin. Clearly the lector and selector were completely oblivious to (or contemptuous of) Garvey’s God – the God seen, as Garvey stated, ‘through the spectacles of Ethiopia’ (and by extension, Ethiopia’s daughter, Egypt.)

Understandably, this is highly offensive to the religious sensibilities of some, which is exactly my point. Without here commenting in detail on the ostensibly insurmountable problems involved in taking the ‘Exodus’ account beyond religious literature into a timeline of purported history, (with or without the alleged miraculous components), the most creative (if not plausible) postulation to date, which attempts to sync the Exodus account with the Hyksos Expulsion (see Queens of Courage I) or events recorded in the Ancient Egyptian Tempest Stele of Ahmose I (prior attempts to place the Exodus in the times of Rameses II being absolutely indefensible … sheer historical fantasy, if such a thing exists) an extremely ingenuous intellectual exercise, but still lacking credulity. The only motive for such baseless efforts comes from the flawed view that the two stories and their sources are even generically comparable. Legend and history, journalism and spin, mesmery and memory, who to tell the difference?

Setting aside the matter of the historical credulity of the passage, apart from deep ancestral disavowal, the type required from Africans and Indigenes for absorption in the ‘Christian’ nations that usurped their civilizations, would any descendants of Og King of Bashan or Sihon King of the Amorites join the love refrain? … who experienced Yahweh Sabaoth not as God of Love but as war-god of the Haribu (Hebrews)?

When sacredness and profanity have already been unwittingly and unwarrantedly decided and determined, who is to say who is villain, victim or protagonist? This closes out inquiry, (whether into history, theology or the nationalism / ethno-centrism both almost always support) which becomes a most painful and to-be-dreaded thing, as it may well require reorientation of the soul for the misaligned and confession of either wickedness or ignorance on the part of the perpetuator of discovered lies. This is the Fox vs MSNBC equivalent of historiography. Whose report will you believe?

No wonder The Half not told remains untold – so that the oft-told half truths and outright lies of religious and political propaganda can remain unchallenged. Nevertheless, for the few with a genuine thirst for truth and justice, I again present these few uncomfortable articles with a challenge to anyone of my fellow theological and historical inquirers and even experts to enter into constructive conversation:

I, with certain readiness, highly endorse whatever efforts are being made or hope to be made from the Garvey in Schools project led by Major Effiom Whyte. As so rarely understood by Mrs Garvey, in the final analysis, the most sacred story we have is our own. It is high time attention was paid there.